Sony NGP Is Dead on Arrival - Publisher of Smartphone Games.

A publisher of causal video games designed for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch platforms said that Sony Corp.'s next-generation dedicated video game console called NGP was dead on arrival and so are all dedicated mobile consoles.

“I think [Sony's portable consoles] are hurt; I think they are clearly hurt. I think PSP is done and the new [NGP] is dead on arrival. It's really difficult to compete with an app store that has hundreds of thousands of applications and a wide range of options where the average price paid is around $1.20 and there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of free applications that are really high quality," said Neil Young, the head of Ngmoco, said in an interview with IndustryGamers web-site.

Sony and Nintendo stress that titles designed for dedicated portable game consoles provide better experience and longer game-play compared to games developed for smartphones albeit at higher price. However, the quality of content for smartphones is getting higher and will become even more solid once ported titles from consoles and PCs hit PlayStation-branded and other Google Android-based handsets. Nonetheless, dedicated hardware by definition has higher performance and better form-factor to play games compared to a smartphone.

“[NGP is] not a PS3 quality experience... And in terms of getting broad adoption, having great processing power is not necessarily a prerequisite for great adoption in the marketplace. You need a range of things and what I think the iPod Touch and iPhone have been able to do is offer people Swiss army knife-type functionality for a device that plays games really well. [The platform is] pretty good at playing games and it can do a whole bunch of other things as well," added Mr. Young.

Interestingly, but the designer of iPhone games paints a better picture for Nintendo 3DS.

"I think Nintendo will likely be competitive. My personal opinion is that the 3D piece of the puzzle is kind of gimmicky. But Nintendo has great franchises and there are tens of millions of people who want to participate in those franchises, so that always helps," assumed the head of Ngmoco.

Sony has succeeded in selling 67.8 million of PlayStation Portables so far and Nintendo Corp. has managed to sell over 145 million of various versions of its DS console. But manufacturers of smartphones have sold many more units and all of those devices can provide decent gaming experience. It is a big question whether there are a lot of gamers, who want to have premium gaming experience while on the go and it will be answered in the following couple of years, when Nintendo 3DS and Sony PSP2/NGP will reach the mass market.

Discussion

I think the time for a stand-alone gaming hand-held is quickly diminishing as we reach the max practical size/resolution on small devices, not to mention the large part of the pie being stolen/evolved by casual 'mobile gaming' (ex: Angry Birds) that requires less horsepower.
That said, I think there will always be room for a Swiss Army knife device; IE a Touch/PSP/PMP-like device for gaming, watching videos, music, taking photos/videos, etc. That will only get better. At what point a phone does that well-enough to potentially replace them is up to each consumer's opinion, but I don't think we're that far off from it being acceptable for many. Still, not everyone will want the two to be paired. After-all, I don't foresee most children owning 'superphones' any time soon.

Convergence is the future, if not present. That much is a reality. So is a perceived 'good-enough' threshold. As process and other technology improves we will do more things with each device, with some encroaching on specialized territory many didn't think possible. We've become so accustomed to a specialized device that just did it's sole function better each time because we have never had the tech capable of each reaching their respected thresholds. It's time for many, Sony/Nintendo included, to face the new reality.